Cozumel November 2015 Trip report

[MMM]

Ohhh!!! ohhh!!! I just bought an Oly OMD EM-5 Mark 2 with the 12-50 lens and the zoom gears and stuff for it. The Nauticam housing came 2 days ago. I can't wait to try it out; it's a LOT more camera than I had. (I have one S&S strobe..) Since I dive with virtually no weight, I'm a bit concerned about how much more it weighs than my old Oly XZ1 and its plastic housing.

Yeah, 300-400 is a bit of a short fill all right.

I use Olympus OMD EM-5, 2 sea and sea strobes. I mostly used the 12-50 mm lens the entire trip. I did not use the macro lens at all this trip. Guess there were too many turtles and eagle rays.

Raul does not have his own AL80's and uses a fill station. We taxed him quite a bit with no days off and he had afternoon dives at times in addition to taking care of everyone's gear so tank checks weren't always done. So in the short term he brought O-rings and we swapped them. It didn't take that long.

The fills as told to me (I dived AL 100's and had not problems) was that they had 2600-2700 psi. Not all were like this - enough to be irritating. Not a huge difference but means less minutes. As I said in another reply, we as a group were getting 60-80 minutes average and pushing tables every day.

 

[gopbroek]

"We noticed many of the tanks on the boat had bad o-rings which had to be replaced and many of the AL 80s air tanks had short fills."

What do you think is going on here ? More reports like this has me checking out those few ops that do their own fills, and not relying on the main central (short)fill station.

My LDS uses Meriando for fills and I often go down and help load up tanks. They are very good at filling AL80's to 3K, we have found short fills but on further examination it is usually traced to the tank valve seats being worn outand slowly seeping, which the dive shop subsequently replaced.

 

[ColoDale]

MMM - the rig I have with two strobes and Nauticam housing and flexitray with dual handles is negative underwater. I use four jumbo foam floats with the 1" dia hollow strobe arms - I think 8" long. With everything on mine it is a bit of a beast on land but well manageable underwater. I also leave the gear set on the lens always. btw - the camera with the 12-50 lens cap on, will fit in the housing and flat port. Always double check. I did not learn the hard way but almost.

 

[morecowbells]

Stunning pics, especially the Splendid Toadfish! We dove with Raul in Oct. and had wonderful dives. I did my first night dive on the San Francisco reef well. At first was nervous, but calm prevailed while watching the number of octopi out hunting. We had a crazy, amazing nurse shark experience on Cedar Pass. Love the spotted eagle ray shots, they really capture their beauty.

Raul looking under coral for green moray. Shark came out of nowhere.


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[ColoDale]

Raul hunts lionfish mostly for him to eat but the smell attracts nurse sharks. They will go from diver to diver sometimes. If Raul gets too pestered he will surrender the lionfish if he has one.